CHAPTER VI. ST. ANDREW’S ROCK

“How does he seem now?” said Geraldine,
as Lancelot came into the drawing-room of St. Andrew’s
Rock at Rockquay, in the full glare of a cold east
windy May evening.

“Pretty well fagged out, but that does not greatly
matter. I say, Cherry, how will you stand this?
Till I saw you in this den, I had no notion how shabby,
and dull, and ugly it is.”

“My dear Lance, if you did but know how refreshing
it is to see anything shabby, and dull, and ugly,”
Mrs. Grinstead answered with imitative inflections,
which set Anna Vanderkist off into a fit of laughter,
infecting both her uncle and aunt. The former
gravely said-

“If you had only mentioned it in time, I could
have gratified you more effectually.”

“I suppose it is Aunt Cherry’s charity,”
said Anna, recovering. “The reflection
that but for her the poor natives would never have
been able to go to their German baths.”

“Oh, no such philanthropy, my dear. It
is homeliness, or rather homeyness, that is dear to
my bourgeoise mind. I was afraid of spick-and-span,
sap-green aestheticism, but those curtains have done
their own fading in pleasing shades, that good old
sofa can be lain upon, and there’s a real comfortable
crack on that frame; while as to the chiffonier, is
not it the marrow of the one Mrs. Froggatt left us,
where Wilmet kept all the things in want of mending?”

“Ah! didn’t you shudder when she turned
the key?” said Lance.

“Not knowing what was good for me.”

“But you will send for some of our things and
make it nice,” entreated Anna, “or Gerald
will never stay here.”

“Never fear; we’ll have it presentable
by the vacation. As for Uncle Clement, he would
never see whether he was in a hermit’s cell,
if he only had one arm-chair and one print from Raffaelle.”

There was a certain arch ring in her voice that had
long been absent, and Anna looked joyous as she waited
on them both.

“I am glad you brought her,” said Lance,
as she set off with Uncle Clement’s tea.

“Yes, she would not hear of the charms of the
season.”

“So much the better for her. She is a
good girl, and will be all the happier down here,
as well as better. There’s a whole hive
of Merrifields to make merry with her; and, by the
bye, Cherry, what should you think of housing a little
chap for the school here where Fergus Merrifield is?”